RPGWatch Feature: Divine Divinity Retrospective

July 25th, 2008, 11:14

Michael "txa1265" J. Anderson continues the irregular series of retrospectives we hope to bring you, this time taking a five-year look back at Divine Divinity. Here's an excerpt:

One of the quirky 'top whatever' lists that appears every now and then is the list of worst names for video games. And somewhere on every one of those lists is Divine Divinity. Yeah, it IS pretty obvious why.

The game would also appear on another list - if some one could figure out how to name it. That list would be 'best deep role playing game that fans of classic RPG's have ignored because it features action-RPG combat and has a very difficult and long dungeon in the beginning.' So you can see I won't be getting a job naming lists anytime soon. Point is, this is a game that many RPG fans tried the demo and felt it was just yet another Diablo Clone and left it behind. Something about the old saying 'you only get one chance to make a first impression' springs to mind.

— “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou
"Those who dont read history are destined to repeat it."– Edmund Burke

Divine Divinity was absolutely great. It had much more in common with games like Baldur's Gate than Diablo, even if the game mechanics and the graphics looks like Diablo. I would add Dungeon Siege II to that list as well.

I must say that I've never really liked DD. I did manage to beat the dungeon but afterwards some guy did me in (IIRC a human guard of some sort and I wasn't even looking for trouble ) and I hadn't saved for a long while (stupid me I know) . Perhaps I should have been more persistent but the dungeon really took out all I had.

I was one of the people who didn't like the demo and didn't buy it for a while. The demo was boring and didn't show off one of the better parts of the game. Once I bought it though, I found it to be one of the better action RPGs of this decade.

I loved DD too, except for the tacked on last act. Outside of that I felt it was very well done and was shocked that Beyond Divinity missed so badly. With Larian basically disappearing after BD, I wonder if the next Divinity game will ever see the light of day. I have a feeling it'll be a local game only if it does get released. Time will tell.

A short while ago, a tv program showed DD2 as a third-person perspective and over the shoulder game. While the graphics wasn't mind-blowingly good, i'm very eager for the game, rumored to be released in 2009!.

Originally Posted by Remus
A short while ago, a tv program showed DD2 as a third-person perspective and over the shoulder game. While the graphics wasn't mind-blowingly good, i'm very eager for the game, rumored to be released in 2009!.

I watched this TV programm as well and the graphics actualy seemed pretty good to me.

— “ Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius – and a lot of courage – to move in the opposite direction.“ (E.F.Schumacher, Economist, Source)

I wonder what's taking BD so long. Their last game was released more than four years ago and they haven't produced anything publicly for about two years. Basically they showed off some screen renders a couple of years ago, and nothing at all since then.

Nice look at the game, as always Mike—especially your spot-on analysis of the skills system, which is one of my favorites in the action/rpg-crpg universe. I've never managed to make it past about 80 hours into the game, but every so often i need my DD fix and fire it up just for the experience it gives.

Any recommendations for class choice for a 1-time playthrough? I've had this game sitting on my shelf for several years and have never had the time to get into it. Reading this retrospective has me thinking about starting a game soon. I rarely replay games, and the fact that this one is 100+ hours long means I'll most probably not play it more than once. Any opinions on which class is the most "fun" to play with?